- X’s Grok AI tool has created pornographic images of women and children
- Now, US senators have told Apple and Google that they must ban the apps.
- Malaysia and Indonesia have already blocked the use of the applications
In recent weeks it has been discovered that Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot built into X, is being actively used to generate explicit images of children and women without their consent, leading to Apple and Google removing the Grok and X apps from their respective app stores.
Now pressure has increased after a group of US senators wrote a letter to Apple and Google demanding they take action, and today the UK media watchdog Ofcom says it has also launched an official investigation.
The US letter was signed by Senators Ron Wyden, Ben Ray Luján and Edward Markey, and calls on companies to “enforce the terms of service of their app stores” as “Generation
After detailing how Grok has been “altering images to depict women being sexually abused, humiliated, injured and even murdered” and how “Grok has allegedly created sexualized images of children,” the senators noted that these actions violate the app store policies of both Apple and Google.
Google’s terms of service “prohibit users from creating, uploading, or distributing content that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of children,” the senators say, “including prohibiting the depiction of children in a way that could result in the sexual exploitation of children.”
Apple, meanwhile, expressly prohibits “overtly sexual or pornographic material.” The senators claim that “turning a blind eye to X’s egregious behavior would make a mockery of his moderation practices.”
Pressure grows on X and Musk
The group of US senators also noted Apple and Google’s recent opposition to greater regulatory scrutiny of their app stores.
“Failure to take action would undermine its claims in public and in court that its app stores offer a safer user experience than allowing users to download apps directly to their phones,” the senators wrote, adding that “this principle has been central to its defense against legislative reforms to increase competition in app stores and its defenses to claims that its app stores abuse their market power through their payment systems.”
Apple and Google have shown they can act quickly to ban apps, the senators note. “Their companies quickly removed applications that allowed users to legally report immigration control activities, such as ICEBlock and Red Dot,” they argue. “Unlike Grok’s disgusting content generation, these apps did not create or host harmful or illegal content, and yet, based entirely on [US Government’s] Claiming they posed a risk to immigration agents, you removed them from your stores.”
The senators say they expect Apple and Google to “demonstrate a similar level of responsiveness and initiate swift action to remove Apps X and Grok from their app stores.”
Regardless of whether Apple and Google take action, X and Grok face increasing pressure around the world. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia recently blocked Grok in light of the controversy over the imaging, and with lawmakers in the United Kingdom, the European Union and India also closely examining the AI tool, they may not be the only countries taking action.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
